You guys Idris Elba is a talented singer/DJ/Producer and of course actor. I mentioned his upcoming album on a previous post. He can sing, ok!
Idris Elba has long prided himself on the ability to go from playing a Baltimore pusher to a British gangster to a bullying boss on a hit sitcom, and having audiences not recognize him as the same actor.
But that kind of anonymity is about to change for the London-born Elba, a versatile character actor best known for his role as cerebral drug dealer Russell (Stringer) Bell on HBO’s crime drama “The Wire.”
In the new thriller “Obsessed,” in theaters now, Elba has a leading role opposite one of the biggest music stars around: He plays Beyoncé Knowles’ cheating husband in a sordid tale of a successful businessman whose fling with a sexy, psychotic co-worker (Ali Larter, of TV’s “Heroes”) leads to all sorts of nasty business.
It’s a potential breakout role that the 36-year-old Elba says he has been preparing for since he lived in New York in the early 2000s and spent too many years scraping by as a struggling actor and club deejay.
“I’ve built my career brick by brick, but I didn’t start off saying, ‘Oh, I’m going to try to do as many different types of roles as possible,’ ” says Elba, who last year was a London thief in Guy Ritchie’s “RocknRolla,” and currently plays Steve Carell’s no-nonsense supervisor on NBC’s “The Office.”
“I just start off every job saying, ‘Okay, this is very different from the last one,’ and take it from there.”
Starring alongside Beyoncé, who’s better known for her singing than her acting chops, proved a different challenge for the more experienced Elba.
“Beyoncé was very open about us working together on building our characters and building the authenticity of our marriage in the film,” says Elba, who began his career 15 years ago in a string of British TV series.
“We definitely leaned on each other to make that happen. But the great thing about people like Beyoncé, who do one thing and are trying to do other things, is that she isn’t afraid to ask questions. She isn’t afraid to tell you that she’s naive about certain things, and that was refreshing. She would accept my advice or not accept it, but it was definitely a partnership.”
Ironically, Elba could have turned to the mega-music star for a little career advice himself. The former club deejay has a burgeoning music career in addition to his acting. He has produced and composed songs for the likes of Jay-Z and Angie Stone, cut a four-song EP in 2006 titled “Big Man,” and is working on a CD of his own that he hopes to release this year.
“It’s me stepping out from behind the turntables and into the room and just putting some music together,” says Elba.
“It’s a hybrid of hip hop meets reggae, meets soul, meets jazz. I do a little singing, a little rapping, a little talking. I’ve been doing this for so long, I just feel like I owe it to myself to push the music out there.”
Yet despite all those months they spent together on the set of “Obsessed,” Elba insists he never once asked Beyoncé for any feedback on his music.
“I’m too proud, basically,” he says, laughing. “I’ve been deejaying long enough to know the difference between a good record and a bad one, so I just figured I’m going to do it myself.
“But that said, Beyoncé is the kind of person that would say, ‘Yo ’Dris, let me hear what you got, let me see what you’re doing,’ and maybe steer me in the right direction — if I had asked,” says Elba, laughing again. “But I didn’t.”
I'm not surprised he never asked for her input. It just does not seem like his style.
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